At Day's End
by r4ven3
Summary: Harry goes in search of Ruth at the end of the day when Ruth was kidnapped by Lucas, and Lucas jumped from Enver Tower. A Harry & Ruth story in two chapters. Note M rating for 2nd chapter.
1. Chapter 1

Tariq Masood looks up from the three monitors arranged in an arc on the desk in front of him to see his boss enter the Grid. The man looks wrecked, and there appears to be a small cut above his right eye. Harry nods in Tariq's direction before he enters his office. Tariq lifts his eyebrows in greeting towards the older man, who has already closed his office door, as well as the blinds which afford him privacy from the remainder of the Grid. Tariq thinks for a moment that Ruth should have stayed at her desk for another thirty minutes. That's all it would have taken, but no, she took off in a hurry some time ago.

Tariq is busy tracking the Chinese who took the Albany weapon. He loves his job. More than loves it. There is nothing he enjoys more than desktop espionage. Amongst his friends from school – now doctors, lawyers, software developers, internet entrepreneurs, running family businesses – Tariq is the only one who is working at his dream job. He believes he is the luckiest guy in the world.

It is a while later that Tariq hears Harry leave his office, and walk to Ruth's desk. Tariq watches him, still keeping his head bent over his monitors. Harry notices Ruth's coat is missing, while her bag is still under her desk.

"Have you any idea -?" Harry begins, turning his way.

"None, Harry. She left a little while before you arrived back. My guess would be -"

"The roof?"

Tariq nods, then drops his eyes, and strokes his chin thoughtfully with his fingers. Everyone knows that Harry and Ruth meet on the roof. The important thing – as he sees it – is that neither Harry nor Ruth ever discovers that they all know. This is where a fine and delicate balance is required. Maintaining this balance is not something at which Tariq is especially skilled, but he is slowly getting the hang of it.

Harry steps on to the roof, but Ruth is not in sight. He steps to the balustrade, and rests his hands on the railing. It is cold up here. She wouldn't have stayed long. He'd noticed her gloves on her desk, sticking out from under a pile of files. He looks left and right, but she's not there.

* * *

He doesn't head anywhere in particular, but he knows he must find her. He crosses the road, and heads towards the embankment. He can't imagine her leaving Thames House without her bag or her gloves, but he's not Ruth, so he has little idea of what is driving her. It is already dark, but the river and the embankment is light enough, with lights on lamp posts at regular intervals. Harry's eyes are on the bench where they have sat together so many more times than he could count, but she is not there. He sits down anyway. He's wearing leather gloves, and he shoves his gloved hands deep into his coat pockets, as he stretches his legs out in front of him, and leans against the back of the bench.

The day has been harder than most – Lucas holding Ruth hostage, demanding that he, Harry, hand over Albany; finding Ruth in the nick of time; having Ruth condemn him for giving Albany away; his meeting Lucas on the top of Enver Tower, fully expecting this to be his last ever gesture of sacrifice. Yes, it has been one hell of a day, and it isn't over yet.

Something draws his eyes up and to the right, and there she is, slowly walking along the embankment towards him, her eyes on him all the while. He watches her as she approaches, and then pats the bench beside him, hoping she'll sit down. Neither speak as Ruth hesitates before him, removes her ungloved hands from her coat pockets, and sits primly on the bench, leaving an arm's length between them.

_So, it's to be like this, is it?_

Harry sighs, and again leans back. When she doesn't speak, he turns to look at her. She looks tired, overwrought, and near tears. Her hands are folded in her lap, and to his eyes, they look blue with cold. Harry sits up, and removes his gloves, handing them to her across the space between them. She shakes her head, looking up at him with sad eyes.

"What will you do, Harry? Then your hands will freeze."

"Take them, Ruth," he says gently.

Ruth hesitates before she again shakes her head. Harry slides closer to her, close enough to touch her. He grasps her right hand, and slides his right-hand glove on to her hand, before putting the other one back on his left hand. Then he slides close enough to her that their thighs touch. He takes her left hand in his right, and draws it deep into his coat pocket. Ruth's face shows shock, but there's little she can do, as he is holding her hand tightly in his. He'd noticed her resistance to his gesture, but it only takes a minute or two for her to relax. Through her hand, he feels the tension leave her.

"I'm not your enemy, Ruth," he says at last, his voice barely audible above the burr of traffic.

He feels her squeeze his hand, and he's sure she leans a little towards him. He longs to say, `Let me love you', but he knows she'd not appreciate the sentiment …... not after the day they've had. He feels her looking at him, and he slowly turns to catch her eyes. They are wide with fear and unshed tears.

"You have a cut above your eye," she says. "You should probably be home."

"It's nothing. Par for the course. You should be home, too. What did they tell you at the hospital?"

She says nothing for a minute or two. "They said …... that the long-term effects from the anaesthetic can be unpredictable, and I should have someone with me at all times during the next 24 hours."

"Which is why you went off walking on your own. Ruth -"

"I went looking for you."

"What?"

"When you hadn't come back to the Grid, I went looking for you."

"You should have rung me."

Ruth sighs as if measuring her words. "My phone's back on my desk," she says quietly.

"_What_?"

"I was sure I had it, but when I went to call you, I found I'd left it back on my desk …... along with my gloves, it seems."

Harry sits forward, facing her. Their hands are still clasped in his coat pocket, and he'll not let go of her …... just in case she takes off again, or goes to throw herself in front of a moving vehicle – a bus perhaps - just so that she can show him that her sacrifice will always be greater than his. Such a pair they are.

But he does let go of her hand. He shoves her hand deeper in his pocket, and then lifts his own hand out and touches the tears which fall down her cheeks. He leans into her, and takes her face between both his hands, one gloved, and one ungloved.

"Ruth," is all he can say.

Their faces are so close, but he doesn't wish to act inappropriately. He doesn't want to have her get up and walk away from him. Again.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm sorry I hurt you with what I said."

He nods, knowing she's talking about more than what happened that day. He feels her moving, and then both her hands settle on his waist, outside his coat. He wishes he'd thought to open the buttons of his coat, so that he could feel her hands closer to his body. As it is, there are several substantial layers of fabric between her hands and his skin. Harry sighs heavily, and imagines her hands on his skin. The thought is exquisite and painful, since he knows that it is unlikely it will ever happen.

He feels her lean towards him – a surrendering of control – and so his arms naturally slide around her, pulling her against him, so that she rests her head on his shoulder.

"You were a bloody idiot going off like that to meet Lucas. You could have been killed."

"I know."

"And when you said what you did …... about it being your turn …... Harry, that was -"

"I know. I shouldn't have. It was cruel."

"Yes. It was. But I said it first."

"You did, Ruth."

There was not a lot else they could say about their day. They'd both made bad calls. Harry feels her hair under his nose, and he closes his eyes and breathes in her scent. Apart from the probability that they'd be found frozen together in the morning, he could stay like that all night, his arms around Ruth, her head on his shoulder, one of her arms around his waist, her other hand resting on his chest. For the first time in many weeks, he is happy.

Then he remembers the implications of him having given away Albany.

"They'll kick me out, Ruth."

"Who?"

"The powers that be. The grey men in Whitehall. They'll want me out. When I gave away Albany, I committed treason."

"If you go, then so will I."

"You can't, Ruth."

"Why not?"

"I won't let you."

"We'll see about that."

Harry smiles into her hair. His bold Ruth, strong Ruth, is on the mend. She is on her way back to him. All she needs is something to fight for …... something other than herself.

"About what they told you at the hospital," he says after a time. "I think you need to come home with me."

He feels her hand hit him lightly on his chest, and he smiles at the gesture. Were she not offering resistance to his suggestion he'd be worried about her. She shifts away from him so that she can look at him. Her eyes are bright, her expression feisty.

"You'll try anything, won't you?"

"I'm serious, Ruth. You shouldn't be alone, not even for a few minutes."

"Not while I'm in the shower?"

He smiles then, knowing he's been caught out.

"I still think you should come back to mine, and let me look after you."

"You got hit on the head, Harry. Don't you need someone to look after you?"

He gazes into her eyes. The light on the lamp post behind them casts an ethereal glow over their faces. To him, she has never looked more beautiful or desirable. He wants her in his home, in his bed, in his bath, his shower, his kitchen, in his life. But he'll settle for her to come home with him and sleep in his spare room.

"Perhaps we can look after one another, Ruth."

They watch one another for what seems like a long time, but is probably only a minute. Harry swallows, watching her face, trying to read it, and failing. What he doesn't know is that Ruth has already made up her mind to go home with him. She is examining the dearest face she knows, memorising its features for some time in the future when they'll be parted, as she is sure they will be. That is how their relationship goes …... no sooner do they get close to one another, than circumstances conspire to pull them apart. That appears to be a law of the universe.

* * *

Harry calls his driver to take them home. Ruth had suggested public transport, and he'd smiled at her, imagining them sitting at the back of the bus, holding hands, enjoying their closeness as they are thrown together each time the bus turns a corner. They sit in the back seat of the car not touching. Harry's driver just may not be as discreet as he should. They don't wish to give him anything to gossip about, although they'd driven by Ruth's flat so that she could grab her overnight bag, which would have given the driver ample fodder for any amount of stories to concoct, and then pass on.

Once inside his house, Harry shows Ruth to the spare room, which is just down the hall from his own.

"I don't know about you, Ruth, but I need to wash today's events off me in the shower. The guest bathroom is next to this room, and my en suite is across the hall from your bedroom. We can order something to eat after we've showered."

Ruth busies herself unpacking her overnight bag, more to hide the flushing in her cheeks as she imagines them showering together. Harry hadn't exactly specified who should shower where. He'd only implied. He leaves the room, slightly bewildered by Ruth's inability to make eye contact with him. Since they'd left the anonymity of the bench by the embankment in the half-light of evening, nothing has been quite the same between them. There has been a slight distance, reminiscent of almost all their other encounters for as long as they'd known one another.

Harry sighs heavily as he takes off his clothes in his bedroom, and lays out some fresh clothes on the bed. As much as he wishes he could share his bed with Ruth this evening, he thinks it unlikely. Walking naked through to his en suite, Harry turns the hot water on full. He needs cleansing, but he also needs to _feel_. What he overlooks is that the second door to his en suite, the one which leads straight into the hallway opposite the doorway to the guest bedroom, is standing open.

* * *

Ruth is satisfied with a short shower, has dried herself, and then wrapped herself in her bathrobe, loosely tying the tie, when she opens the bathroom door to the hallway. With only a few yards to her bedroom door, she should reach it in seconds, but at the last moment, she senses movement to her right, where through the doorway – half open – she sees Harry drying himself. She should turn away and head straight into the guest bedroom. She should at least avert her eyes. She should keep moving, but she can't.

Even had her life depended upon it, her muscles are paralysed, nor can she remove her eyes from the vision she sees through the doorway.

* * *

_**A/N: I have to confess that I have `borrowed' this particular scenario from parttimeficwriter's fic, "Smug Marrieds." I thought the image too delectable to not be repeated. **_


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N: The 2nd and last chapter. Thanks for reading, and also for the reviews.**_

* * *

Harry stands naked, his back half turned towards her, and he is toweling his hair, so that the length of the towel hangs down the front of his body to his knees, covering his face, neck, chest and genital area. What she sees is his buttocks, still wet from the shower, with rivulets of water running down his back, over his waist, and pooling between his buttocks. Her eyes are then drawn to the droplets of water caught in the hairs on his thighs. His thighs! Who knew they were that muscled? His suits cover everything about his body shape, and she has had to use her imagination to conjure what he may be like underneath the layers of clothing. She then notices his upper arm and the shoulder which is turned her way. Ruth is sure she's stopped breathing, and that her body processes are running on empty. Shouldn't she be collapsing unconscious on the floor by now?

It takes a few moments for her to notice that Harry has stopped drying his hair, and that he is standing statue still, holding his towel to his chest. When she follows his eyes, she sees that he sees her in the mirror above the hand basin. His eyes are like dark lasers, watching her as she stands silently watching him. It is too late for her to run to her room, apologising all the way, mumbling incomprehensible excuses as to why she happens to be standing there gawping. He sees her looking, and he knows what she is thinking. He can read her like a book.

While their eyes hold the other's in the mirror, Harry slowly lowers his hands until the towel just covers his genitals. She longs to cover the short distance between them, and run her hands over his skin, to bury her fingers in his pubic hair, twirling it around her fingers, then to reach lower to what he is covering with the towel. Not that she'd ever admit to that particular longing, of course. Ruth is also aware that he is breathing as heavily as she.

Slowly, Harry turns to face her. He takes one small step towards her, and then stops. With one hand holding the towel to cover his modesty, he reaches towards her with the other hand.

"Ruth," he says so softly that she can't hear him, but can read his lips.

To avoid those eyes of his, she casts her eyes over his body – his broad chest, wide shoulders, powerful legs – but then notices that beneath the towel, he is growing. Harry is sexually excited by this situation. Why isn't she running for her life? _Because today I could have died. Today Harry could have died, and we hadn't done together what we've both wanted for so long, but haven't quite figured out how to do yet. _And if Ruth is being honest with herself, there is a part of her which wants to tear off her bathrobe, and see where it all leads.

This is their moment, and she doesn't want to ruin it. It isn't the perfect moment. Only hours ago, Harry had received a blow to the head, and she'd been pumped full of some ghastly anaesthetic drug which has left her feeling groggy and disoriented. Neither are at their best, but this might be a good thing. When they are at their best, she and Harry have the endurance of athletes as they run from one another, and build impenetrable walls between them.

While still maintaining eye contact with Harry, Ruth takes a tentative step towards him. Then another. She loosens the tie on her bathrobe, but doesn't open it. She'd really love it were Harry to do that. If he wants to, that is …... and she'd bet everything she owned on him wanting to. Another step and she is through his bathroom door. Harry is tying the towel around his waist. She doesn't know why he's bothering, though. She has plans to rip it off him.

They are standing only a little over a yard apart, their eyes locked, their breathing audible.

"Do you -?" Harry managed to say before his voice cracks.

Ruth reaches out to him with her hand, and he takes another step towards her, so that she touches his chest with her palm.

"Your heart is beating so fast," she says unnecessarily. She knows hers is also.

Harry covers her hand with his own, as he steps so close to her that his stomach nestles against hers. Ruth feels his other hand wrestle with the tie of her bathrobe. He unties the knot, and pushes her bathrobe apart, exposing her naked body. That is when his eyes leave hers, and feast on her bare shoulders, her breasts, and her tummy.

"God, you are so beautiful," he breathes, gliding his knuckles along the skin of her abdomen. "I knew you would be."

Harry leans forward, and with both hands, slides the bathrobe from her shoulders. He then very slowly pulls her close to him, so that their bodies are pressed against one another. Through his bath towel, Ruth feels his hardness, still growing to fullness. She longs to pull away the towel, but is enjoying the feel of him. She intends enjoying him one sense at a time.

Harry leans closer, and puts his lips on hers. His lips are soft, even softer than she'd expected, as he gently explores her lips, and then as she parts her own lips, her teeth and tongue. _How can men's lips be so soft when the rest of them is so hard and hairy, rough and scratchy?_ Ruth's hand is on his cheek, and it is smooth. _He has shaved for me._ They pull apart slightly and again look at the other. Harry is smiling a gentle smile.

Ruth lowers one hand from his chest until she reaches the towel around Harry's waist. _It has to come off_, she thinks, but before she goes to tug it from his hips, she feels his hand on hers, holding it still.

"I want this, Ruth, more than you could possibly imagine …... but I haven't eaten since before I left home this morning …... and -"

"You're hungry for something other than me," Ruth says, shocked by her words as soon as they have left her mouth.

Harry smiles, both his hands on her hips, holding her close to him. "Yes, as unlikely as that is."

The moment between them – when anything could have happened – is over. Ruth feels a deep sadness as she reaches down to pick up her bathrobe. Harry leans across to help her with it, tying it tightly around her waist, before he heads back into the bathroom for his own bathrobe.

* * *

The moment isn't over. It has been shelved somewhere upstairs, waiting for them to return to it later in the evening, to slip it on like a familiar coat, and continue from where they'd left off. They sit at the kitchen table, both dressed only in bathrobes, eating takeaway Indian, and sipping a light red wine from California ... at least, Harry drinks wine, while Ruth sips water, her concession – sacrifice if you like (which she doesn't) – to her having been drugged earlier that day. They talk little, both a little uncomfortable with the rapid change in their relationship. They both want this - desperately - but they both also know that if they mess it up, they may never have another opportunity like the one they have this night.

The takeaway food containers are in the bin, and their eating utensils are in the sink. Harry and Ruth still sit at the table, sipping water and wine, neither knowing quite how to retrieve the moment they lost. Eventually, it is Harry who breaks the silence.

"Ruth …... I need you to know that when I asked you back here tonight, this wasn't what I was planning. I had no ulterior motive when I asked you to join me -"

"I know, Harry. You've not been terribly forward or forthright in the past – and nor have I – so I hadn't expected what happened earlier ….. and if you remember, I was the one who initiated what happened." Ruth gazes at Harry, contemplating her next words. "And I'm glad that what happened between us happened."

Harry lets out an audible sigh. "So am I," he whispers. "Will you …... I'd like you to sleep in my bed tonight …... with me. It doesn't matter if we do anything or not -"

"Yes, I will, and I think it does matter. It matters to me …... and I know it does to you. I know you're preparing yourself for disappointment, and …... I don't want you to experience any more disappointment because of me."

"You never disappoint me, Ruth."

"That's not what I said. You've been disappointed because of some of the decisions I've made, and I understand that now …... and I'm sorry you've had to feel that way …... for so long."

Harry's silence indicates that Ruth has spoken truthfully. He _has_ been disappointed, beginning when she turned down his second invitation to dinner over four years earlier. How different things may have been had she not.

"I also need you to know, Ruth," he says quietly, "that there's no going back after tonight. This will mean so much to me, as I expect it will to you."

Ruth nods, her eyes shining in the way he finds astonishing.

* * *

They climb the stairs together, both barely breathing. When they reach the upstairs hallway, Harry grasps Ruth's fingers in his own, and turns her to face him. Things happen slowly, but they are quick in her memory of them. He unties her bathrobe, and then his own. Her eyes take in his naked body – flawed, but still beautiful to her – while his eyes rake over her, from face to feet. She thinks this is the first time she has seen his feet, and realises it has taken seven years to see the bare feet of the man she loves. She almost laughs aloud at the sheer improbability.

He has backed her against the wall near the top of the stairs, their bare torsos touching from chests to knees. His mouth is buried in her neck, and his tongue tastes her skin –

She shivers.

And then she feels two things …... his fingers sliding along her folds, and his erection pressing against her. He is growing slowly against her skin. Her body feels tight …... and very, very warm.

She sighs.

He dips two fingers inside her, and glides them further into her. Next thing she knows, his lips surround her nipple, and his tongue flicks, and his teeth nip. His free hand is on her buttocks, pulling her closer still, so that she can feel how hard he is, as he grinds himself into her abdomen.

She gasps.

She lifts her hand from his waist to grasp him. He is - as she'd expected – very well endowed. His fingers have set up a rhythm inside her – her legs can barely hold her – and she does the same as she grasps him in her hand, and slowly moves the length of him and back. He lifts his face from her breast, and looks at her. They both remove their hands, and somehow these hands find the other. His fingers are wet from being inside her. His pupils are fully dilated, and his look is one of love and lust. Perhaps at this moment, lust is winning. He bends towards her to kiss her. The kiss is deep, and long and his tongue searches inside her mouth for more.

As difficult as it is to do, Ruth pulls out of the kiss.

"Not here, Harry," she whispers against his lips.

"I know. I can't help it." He can barely speak.

As they'd been kissing, he'd bent his knees, and taken his penis and pushed it between her legs, so that as he presses himself against her, his hardness slides across her folds and back. She is so tempted to lift one leg to his hip, and let him in, that she has to stop them before they go too far.

"Not against the wall," she adds, "not for our first time together."

He pulls away from her, and she almost cries from missing him against her, almost inside her. She takes his hand, and leads him to his bedroom. The bedside lamp is still on from earlier. There are clothes on his bed, which he grabs, and tosses over a chair. She turns towards him, and slides his robe from his shoulders, and then slips off her own. Both robes fall to the polished boards with a sigh. Harry pulls back the duvet so that she can climb into bed first, and then he follows her. They lie against one another, and again he presses himself against her skin.

In that moment, as she feels his hardness pressing into her hip, and what sounds like a cry from deep in Harry's throat, as his hands search her skin, Ruth decides that foreplay can be overrated. Remembering how good it felt when he'd pushed himself between her legs in the hallway, she grasps him in her hand, while arranging her body so that he can slide between her legs without being inside her. Harry sighs heavily, as he slowly pushes himself back and forwards, the friction exquisite for them both.

"Ruth," he says, his voice strangled.

She knows he's close, but so is she. Harry's erection is still between her legs, but he has stopped moving, his breathing heavy. She lifts her leg over his hip, which pulls her closer to him, and she takes him in her fingers, and guides him inside her, as far as he will go. Then she stays very still. Harry is very aroused, and for both their sakes, she doesn't wish him to come too soon.

"Are you alright?" she asks, as he slowly begins moving his hips.

He nods slowly, his eyes closed. When he opens them, Ruth is watching him. Her hands are on his chest, and his hands hold her hips. She reaches forward to kiss him, and the kiss is brief, but passionate. A thought passes quickly through her mind that she is relieved Harry is such a wonderful kisser. She'd been with men who were okay in bed, but couldn't kiss to save themselves. Kissing is an art form, and Harry has certainly mastered it.

Ruth gives herself up to the regular rhythm of their lovemaking, losing all sense of time and place. They are careful at first, and then Harry increases the speed of his thrusts. It is only when she feels his fingers on her clitoris that she knows he is close. Her climax is deep and long-lasting, and by the time she is able to open her eyes and focus, she sees that he is experiencing his own completion, pushing his hips in an effort to reach into her as deeply as he can. In all the minutes and hours she had spent on the Grid watching Harry through the plate glass windows of his office, she had sometimes wondered what he'd look like as he came. Now she knows, and she smiles as she files away the image within her personal memory bank.

Ruth nestles her face into his neck, listening to the rapid thump of his heartbeat as he rests after his climax. Once they both breathe easier, they disengage, and then lie side by side, holding hands, watching one another wordlessly. Post orgasm, Harry looks exhausted …... and smug and incredibly happy. He reaches out a hand, and caresses Ruth's cheek with his forefinger. `I love you's' are unnecessary. Their faces say it all. Ruth reaches towards him, and kisses him, a soft kiss of thank you. She runs her fingers through his hair, now longer than usual, before he winds his arms around her, as they prepare for sleep.

"That was …..." she says sleepily.

"Yes …. it was."

They fall asleep quickly, exhaustion and contentment taking them.

Tomorrow they will need all the energy and will they can muster, for things are about to change in their world.

* * *

Several miles away, Tariq Masood closes down his computer, and turns off the monitors. He notices that Ruth's bag has gone from under her desk, although he can't remember seeing her return to get it. He hopes Harry has found her. They are going to need one another. He has a gut feeling that the shit's about to hit the fan, and they will all need to be prepared. Harry is going to require their support. Despite that, he still loves his job. There's never a dull moment.

_Fin_


End file.
